Abstract
Soaking and incorporation of legumes for fortification are essential to a complementary food production process. Cassava, orange-fleshed potato, and cowpeas are sustainably cheap, locally available, and underutilized for food biofortification. This study investigated the effect of cowpea soaking time (3, 6, and 9 h) on different composition ratios of cassava, cowpea, and orange-fleshed sweet potato (CCP) blends (50 : 40 : 10 (EC), 50 : 30 : 20 (FC), 50 : 20 : 30 (GC), and 50 : 50 : 0 (HC)). Each blend was assayed for pH, antinutrient, antioxidant, and proximate contents. Results obtained showed that the CCP blends were significantly influenced by the length of cowpea soaking. Moisture and fiber content decreased significantly (P ≤ 0.05) with increased steeping time (3 to 9 h) for the cassava-cowpea-OFSP blends. The blends were significantly different (P ≤ 0.05) in terms of their protein, fiber, fat, ash, and carbohydrate contents. The moisture content of the EC blend was significantly different from only FC and HC blends, respectively. Six (6) hours of soaking showed no significant difference in the nutritional composition of the flour samples compared with 9 hours. The soaking length optimizes the health and nutrient-promoting factors in the various blend samples while also reaffirming cowpeas as a viable biofortification option for use in complementary food production.
Highlights
Soaking generally involves the submergence of seeds in water at room temperature
The positive correlation between ash and radical scavenging activity showed that an increase in ash will increase the radical scavenging activity value of the blend, whereas the negative correlation between ash, total phenolic, terpenoid, lycopene, and vitamin A showed that as the ash content of the blends increase, the total phenolic content, terpenoid, lycopene, and vitamin A would decrease; this supports the findings shown in Tables 2 and 4
The study has established that soaking of cowpea as a processing technique during production of cassava-cowpeaorange-fleshed potato flour optimized the essential nutrients in complementary food for a healthy and nutritional quality
Summary
Soaking generally involves the submergence of seeds in water at room temperature This may be followed by either dehulling or cooking depending on the expected end product. It has become accepted as a viable process amenable to several technological applications. Legume seed cotyledon is the prime photosynthetic producer and reservoir of diverse organic nutrients; it is rich in starch and protein. This has led to the exploration of many methods in the production of complementary foods purposefully to increase their energy gains from consuming them [6]
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